Zeldin and his department can't wait to let you know what they're finding and unwinding day by day.

His first big bombshell, seemingly not even 48 hours after he got the desk, was breaking word of the $20B slush fund they'd found hidden by the outgoing Biden crooks at 'an outside institution.'

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency has found billions of taxpayer dollars parked at a financial institution by the Biden-Harris Administration. Administrator Zeldin is calling for termination of the financial agent agreement, and for the immediate return of the entire fund balance to the United States Treasury to ensure EPA oversight. Administrator Zeldin also announced that he will be referring this matter to the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and Congress, and the agency will work with the U.S. Department of Justice. 

As they started into it, the nauseating additional word came that $2B of the stash had been earmarked for the coffers of a group associated with perpetual election denier and consummate energy grifter Stacey Abrams. They'd arranged a last-minute, $2B windfall for a brand-new NGO that had about $100 in the bank.

NUTHIN' UP MUH SLEEVE

Just a few days later, Zeldin announced his department had gone on a grant-canceling binge. That saved another chunk o' change from heading out the door.

Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin, with the assistance of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), identified and cancelled an additional 20 grants totaling $60,958,537.30 in taxpayer savings. This marks the second round of EPA-DOGE partnered cancellations as the Administrator oversees a line-by-line review of spending, bringing the total taxpayer dollars saved to more than $171 million since being sworn in.

In real news affecting real people, Zeldin just announced that the EPA had completed the first phase of the hazardous waste clean-up in the Los Angeles fire zone and got it done ahead of schedule. 

Trump Administration Finishes Phase 1 of EPA’s Largest Ever Wildfire Cleanup in Record 28 Days

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the agency completed its Phase 1 hazardous materials mission related to the catastrophic Los Angeles County wildfires in under 30 days, as directed by President Donald J. Trump in an Executive Order. This effort has been the largest wildfire hazardous waste cleanup in the history of the EPA.

..By the Numbers:

• 13,612 residential properties surveyed
  • 6,631 Eaton Fire
  • 6,981 Palisades Fire
• 9,201 properties cleared
  • 4,852 Eaton Fire
  • 4,349 Palisades Fire
• 4,381 properties deferred to Phase 2
• 1,038 Electric Vehicles and Bulk Energy Storage Systems Removed

Residents and businesses who have lost their homes will not have the feds holding them up in the clean-up and rebuilding process.

You’re taking all the excuses away from Karen Bass. How will she justify her money making planned delays that she is imposing on the property owners?

— Politicat 🇺🇸 For America (@politicat1) February 26, 2025

Newsom is tootin' his horn as if he was out there personally with a shovel.

Zeldin did go out to check on things and had Rick Grenell with him.

...Zeldin personally visited Altadena and the Pacific Palisades, as well as the EPA‘s incident command post in Burbank, earlier this month to oversee the Phase 1 process.

Hazardous materials removed from burned lots included lithium ion batteries, associated with electric vehicles and power storage systems; household cleaning products; ammunition; and other items that release dangerous and toxic substances when exposed to fire.

The EPA surveyed over 13,000 properties and removed hazardous materials wherever they found them, except where there were structural dangers involved in removal (such as a lithium battery mounted against an unstable wall). EPA personnel will remain onsite to assist the Army Corps of Engineers with Phase 2, which involves the removal of ordinary debris, to deal with 4,000 properties where hazardous waste removal was deferred.

The EPA’s rapid progress has come to symbolize the accelerated cleanup and rebuilding effort being pushed by the Trump administration, and by Ambassador Ric Grenell, who is the President’s envoy for special missions, and who has been overseeing progress in California, making sure that federal, state, and local authorities are cooperating with one another.

That's quite an accomplishment.

On the mandate side of the house, Zeldin has his department looking at 'overhauling' regulations set in place by the previous administration that affect American consumers' both freedom of choice and their pocketbooks, even if not directly. There's something called the 'WaterSense Specifications', which are voluntary - unlike the Department of Energy's efficiency requirements - but they still impact choice and cost because industry sees them as an indicator of where regulations are going in the future and builds accordingly. Also, government contracts often call for compliance with these same 'voluntary' standards.

What a tangled regulatory web.

...President Trump’s public statements called upon the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator to roll back water and energy efficiency standards, which prompted some initial confusion, as DOE, not EPA, administers the Appliance and Equipment Standards Program. Days later, EPA Administrator Zeldin provided greater clarity, announcing that EPA will overhaul recent water efficiency standards implemented under the WaterSense Program, a voluntary ecolabel, which recognizes products that use 20% less water than standard models. Note that even voluntary ecolabels like WaterSense have outsized impacts on appliance markets, partly because federal procurement contracts typically require that products meet those standards, and other institutional purchasers (state governments, municipalities, universities, etc.) often do as well. Furthermore, state appliance efficiency programs often use WaterSense specifications to set more stringent mandatory water efficiency standards. There are fewer statutory constraints on how the administration operates voluntary programs such as Energy Star and WaterSense, making it easier for the administration to chart a much different course than its predecessor and making it more difficult for opponents of these changes to challenge them in court.

While the Trump Administration has yet to announce any efforts to withdraw recently-adopted EnergyStar standards, we anticipate that the Administration will significantly scale back activity under both the WaterSense and EnergyStar programs in the coming years. With respect to enforcement, EPA has not announced any new EnergyStar product disqualifications since December of 2024, but it is too early to tell whether this reflects a change in enforcement posture by the Trump Administration or merely a delay in updating the publicly-available disqualification tracker.  

The EPA is taking a gander at revisiting every last one of them, and the scope of what is covered is astonishing.

Today, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin announced that the agency has taken action to overhaul all Biden-Harris Administration WaterSense specifications. These specifications developed during the Biden-Harris Administration drive up the cost of living for American consumers and lower the quality of household appliances.

 “Americans deserve access to the best products in their homes, and appliances like shower heads and lightbulbs that work,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin. “That’s why I’ve instructed EPA’s WaterSense program to overhaul their specifications that best factor in effectiveness and consumer experience. Together with the Department of Energy and President Trump’s leadership we are working to not only lower costs for American families but improve the quality of household appliances.” 

 The Biden-Harris Administration weaponized energy efficiency rules to restrict consumer choice in many home appliances. If we do not act, the last Administration’s actions will make new home appliances more expensive and contribute to a higher cost of living for Americans.

 The list of specifications developed during the last Administration have encouraged the sale of bathroom and kitchen faucets, residential toilets, and sprinkler nozzles that just don’t work well.

But what will probably have the most significant impact if it comes to pass (and had been considered during the first Trump administration but never followed through on) will be what the EPA director has sent a recommendation to him on - killing something known as 'the endangerment finding.'

That's the statement underpinning every last action the United States has taken since 2009 to mitigate so-called climate change - that greenhouse gases 'endanger' the public.

Heads are already exploding at the news Zeldin wants the 'endangerment finding' gone because everything the climate cultists live for - and have done to the country in its name - goes with it when it does.

Trump’s EPA Plots Single Strike Against US Climate Change Rules

• Environmental chief urges rewrite of 2009 climate finding

• Measure provides legal foundation for array of climate rules

President Donald Trump’s top environmental regulator is recommending the US government scrap its formal conclusion that greenhouse gases endanger the public, a move that would sweep away the legal foundation for regulations limiting planet-warming pollution from power plants, automobiles and oil wells.

In private recommendations to Trump, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin has urged a rewrite of the so-called endangerment finding, setting the stage for a potentially sweeping attack on federal climate regulations. The recommendations were described by people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because the assessment isn’t public.

The president has frequently criticized what he calls the “green new scam,” referring to government policies fighting climate change and promoting emission-free energy. Trump hasn’t formally endorsed the plan outlined by Zeldin, and it’s unclear if he will embrace it. But if he does, the effort would dovetail with priorities such as building more power plants and abolishing incentives for electric vehicle sales. And it would be consistent with recent Trump administration moves to retreat from work on climate change, including preventing a US official from attending a scientific meeting on the issue in China.

“This is the holy grail of the climate agenda,” said Marc Morano, who runs the climate-skeptic website ClimateDepot.com. “If you want to permanently cripple the United States climate agenda you have to go at the heart of it. This is the heart of it: the endangerment finding.”

THE HOLY GRAIL

It's a stunning turn of events and a breathtaking move to make.

"Mr. Trump’s EPA administrator, @epaLeeZeldin, has reportedly sent the White House a recommendation on abandoning the endangerment finding. Given the scientific shortcomings of the EPA’s 'greenhouse' rule, the time has passed for its repeal. The EPA should acknowledge that carbon… pic.twitter.com/BrQGSSJBZ4

— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) February 26, 2025

...Given the scientific shortcomings of the EPA’s 'greenhouse' rule, the time has passed for its repeal. The EPA should acknowledge that carbon dioxide, 2 pounds of which everybody exhales daily, is not a threat to the public and should not be treated as such. This would defang the pseudoscience of fearmongers, the lawfare emanating from the United Nations and anti-human activists and allow a return to common sense and scientific integrity befitting a free society."

For once, I think I can trust that, at long last, there are people in place who are not cult members and will prove we have chosen...

...yeah.

That.